The slippery slope of secularism -

Have you ever tried to slow down your car by applying the parking brake? No, I'm sure you haven't. But if you did try, you would be surprised to discover that it has virtually no effect on your speeding car, whereas the lightest tap on the foot brake immediately diminishes speed. This is why on the one or two occasions when you drive off without remembering to release the parking brake, you drive three blocks before noticing the warning light. However, with your foot on the regular brake the car won't budge. Yes, that regular foot brake is a far stronger device than your parking brake. This is called Newton's First Law of Motion.

That great scientist observed that it is far easier, which is to say it takes far less energy, to keep a stationary car immobile than it is to bring a moving car to rest. Thus a relatively weak parking brake is quite sufficient to keep a parked car stationery even on a hill, but to bring a speeding car to a standstill at the red light you need to stomp on a powerful foot brake.

Sir Isaac's First Law of Motion is hard at work here in the United States. As a moving car resists efforts to modify its movement, so does a human system. If a society is trending in a certain direction, absent any countervailing forces, it will generally continue in the same direction.

For some period of time, and we can debate whether it is 50 or a hundred years, America has been trending secular. Prior to that time, being wise and educated meant knowing God. That is why most universities and schools of earlier periods were established and attended by religious Christians. The same is true in Jewish history. Until the 19th century, education and knowledge were inseparable from religion. Even the etymological origin of the word "secular" is linked to the Hebrew word for a fool.

This obvious link between God and education was clearly recognized in the wording of that great document that accelerated the westward expansion of the United States, the Northwest Ordinance of July 1787, which included this phrase:

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

It never occurred to Thomas Jefferson and the other authors in the Congress of the Confederation that schools would not teach religion and morality and certainly not that one day American schools would proudly proclaim themselves free of religion and morality.

Archimedes once said, "Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world." Why did he include "a place to stand" in his pithy little aphorism? Why didn't he make it even pithier by saying merely, "With a lever I could move the world"? Obviously because when one pushes against something without a firm and immovable platform on which to stand, one's effort results in a reaction. Instead of moving the world, no matter how long his lever, Archimedes would have succeeded only in propelling himself backwards. A firm base allows one to apply the action. Without it, one's effort merely produces a reaction that will slide one backwards. This is Newton's Third Law of Motion.

Trying to become educated without first acquiring a foundation of moral certainty is futile. It resembles trying to push a Zamboni machine off an ice rink while wearing dress shoes. One would only slip and slide, make a lot of noise and fall on one's face. Thus it is in our universities, the institutions in which we exert most effort from the shakiest of platforms, that we frequently find moral distortion and embarrassing foolishness.

Are secular fundamentalists stupid or of low intelligence? Of course not. Conservatives making this claim betray misunderstanding of how secularism insulates even smart people from reality. Even a genius is handicapped if he has been deprived of a religious education. He uses logic like a witchdoctor might use a computer – as a type of totem rather than as a tool.

Each passing year we slide further down the slippery slope of secularism, and each passing year we are a little less educated and perhaps a little more foolish. Each passing year makes is harder to reverse or even slow the trend, because as Newton explained, societies, like vehicles, tend to continue doing whatever they are doing. It is no accident that like most brilliant and educated men of his day, Sir Isaac Newton, was a deeply religious man. Perhaps he became the 17th century's teacher of gravity, motion and calculus precisely because he stood on the platform of the moral absolutes of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I suggest slowing the slide down the slippery slope of secularism by firmly placing our feet on the brakes. Let us put down our foot and confidently contradict every smug secularist we encounter who tries to confuse faith with superstition and religion with ignorance. Instead of compartmentalizing faith and isolating it from education, we ought to recall the words – awareness of God is the foundation of wisdom. At the very least we can oppose today's intense cultural hostility toward biblically based faith.

I used to be an atheist. Used to argue with religious believers, I couldn't handle a lot of the Christian dogmatic beliefs that didn't make sense, such as Adam and Eve, going to hell forever, and so on.

Then I decided I really wanted to know the truth - the truth about what caused the universe, why I was alive, on the earth - what happens after death, and is there any purpose or meaning to life other than get born, eat, and die.

I found out because I wanted to find out, and I gave up my arrogance of thinking I knew.

You can find out, too. Anyone can. You just have to admit that you really don't know whether God exists or not, and ask to be shown, and you will be shown.

You said that there is no correlation between religion and morality. If you're speaking of most religion (including most of what CALLS ITSELF Christianity) you'd be right. But in reference to TRUE religion you'd be incorrect. Consider the words of God in the Bible: "Pure religion and undefiled is this: to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction." To say that true religion is not correlated with morality would be untrue.

Make no mistake, the Lord God Almighty has seen the godlessness of the growing atheist sect in our nation and world and has not at all overlooked the worldliness, fakery, man-made doctrines, and immorality of those who falsely call themselves Christians. There will be a time of reckoning in this nation in which true Christians will be tested, purified, and brought through the fire stronger than ever. Those who falsely claim that name along with the godless atheists will never be able to overcome those people but will instead diminish themselves. In the end, the hand of the wicked (no matter what they call themselves) will be turned against them, and all the false pretenses and doctrines will come to nothing and be destroyed.

Some of the people in our prisons claim the name of Christ, but their actions show that they do not really know Him. They violate the command written in the New Testament to "first do no harm." They do not "do unto others" as they would have others do unto them. Atheists, on the other hand, have no set principles TO violate so to speak on that would be pointless. I would be interested to know where you got that statistic that only 0.2% of the prison population are atheists. I've never heard that before.

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